Spencer Hall's College Football Index, Week 3

Who dares wins, Part 1. The most intriguing upgrade this week in terms of possible poll-jumping: Kansas going to South Florida, an inter-conference game in which both teams could benefit from actually going to the trouble of playing a challenging non-conference team.

Both Kansas and South Florida sit in a similar predicament: lurking between 10 and 20 in the national rankings; buoyed by recent success into college football’s business class; and looking for definitive wins to keep the upward trend alive and well.

The winner of the game gets just that, and will get it on a solo Friday night slot on ESPN. (A brilliant bit of scheduling; rather than getting run over roughshod by the OSU/USC game, it gets the spotlight on a night when you’re too tired to go out anyway.) The loser gets an early loss, yes, but it also gets the benefit of road-testing a raw, still-coalescing team without suffering a conference loss.

See? Win-win, increased national exposure and backslaps all around. Or, if you like, you could go play Mulitdirectional State for a few hundred thousand bucks in extra revenue. Pete Carroll doesn’t play those games, and he does well enough to almost get Kirk Herbstreit to take his calls. Almost.

Perhaps he’s grown allergic to talent. The consensus among most observers who followed South Carolina was that the only quarterback with obvious Division I skills was Stephen Garcia, the blue-chip quarterback whose chief problem has been off-the-field impulse control. Thus far, he’s lingered on the bench behind Chris Smelley and Tommy Beecher, who together have comprised one thoroughly mediocre, pick-prone quarterback.

Gary Danielson wondered out loud what Spurrier’s surprises for Georgia would be, considering Spurrier “tends to reach into his hat” for gimmickry in big games. The biggest shock of all for the Gamecocks at this point would be giving their quarterback with the greatest potential a shot at playing meaningful snaps against Georgia, not rotating quarterbacks in between double reverse passes and flea flickers.

You know, this football thing is getting old. Have we considered doing something different this weekend? Something other than football? The apartment is in desperate need of some serious de-cluttering. And how about that pottery class you’ve been meaning to take? Why not do that Saturday instead of hectic, violent ol’ football, huh?

Well, Beanie, that’s what I’m going to be doing on Saturday. You can go do whatever you want, but I’m taking a little me time.

Love,

Your right foot.

Who dares wins, Part 2. Wisconsin and Fresno State also benefit from early season inter-conference daring, but in very different ways. Wisconsin gets an early shot to validate perpetually lofty rankings despite lacking a cornerstone win in the Bielema era thus far. Fresno State gets their shot to take the pole position for the BCS-buster slot by racking up its second nonconference win of note in a row.

If Fresno wins, however, they’ll probably still be in second place to be the independent slot in the BCS to East Carolina due to the recent outbreak of Pirate fever among poll voters. If you haven’t been practicing your chants of “East Coast bias!” I advise warming up your vocal cords slowly and carefully, and stretching for several minutes before attempting any sustained yelling. Ripped vocal cords are a terrible, terrible thing. Just ask Jim Leavitt and Ron Zook -- theirs haven’t worked properly for years.

Pirate Cannons: Accurate, Well Protected. The most polished, confident, and impressive quarterback thus far in 2008: Patrick Pinkney of Eastern Carolina, he of the 80 percent completion rating and 2-0 record against top 25 teams. Considering some of the quarterbacks stealing paychecks in the NFL, it is difficult to think he won’t play professionally, but let’s avoid pumping him up too much: No one deserves the fate of being drafted by the Oakland Raiders.

(Okay, Sebastian Janikowski deserved it. But besides him, no one else deserves that kind of career implosion.)

Early and bizarre statistic going into week two: The leading passer in the SEC based on passing rating? Casey Dick of Arkansas, who after two games has the edge on Tim Tebow. If this is still true in Week 12, we will eat a signed glossy 8x10 of Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino. (Trick bet: Bobby Petrino’s reflection does not show up in mirrors, therefore there are no pictures of him! The ones you've seen? Photoshop can do anything, I tell you.)

Remember: You know nothing. Baseball may be just be a feminized version of cricket, but give the sport this much credit: Statistically, the sport is a proper science, statistically speaking, compared to football. Drill down further to focus on “college football,” and it gets worse: With roster turnover as an annual factor, your ability to predict what happens from any given weekend to another is pitiful based on numbers. (See: Casey Dick, SEC passing leader.)

Even the limited data you have--i.e., the games already played--are as useful in forecasting what will happen as a pile of chicken bones and a ouija board. Penn State obliterated Oregon State and looked ferocious doing it, but what if Oregon State turns out to be even more of a smoking garbage scow of a team than they looked versus the Nittany Lions? Michigan may have struggled against Utah, but what if the Utes, and not BYU, are the class of the Mountain West?

These are just the quality games. For teams like Georgia and Ohio State, their high rankings two weeks into the season are effectively still 90 percent based on last year’s teams. You know nothing at this point, but take heart: in two weeks, we’ll all know next to nothing, which will be a substantial improvement over the present situation.

Musburger Prop Bets: Odds that Brent Musburger will say the word Buckeye more than 1,200 times Saturday night: 3/2. Over/under on number of slavishly devoted, flattering anecdotes of Jim Tressel Musburger will tell on air: 8. Odds for Brent Musburger openly bursting into tears if Ohio State loses by more than three touchdowns: 3/1. Odds of Musburger offering to hold Tressel in a post-game interview following a 21-point loss, resulting in The Most Awkward Moment Ever On National Television: 2/1.

And remember: If Brent says “frosty adult beverage” on Saturday night, you have to drink, pledge. It's in the rules.

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.